How Bloggers Can Use Drop Shipping & Facebook To Make (Real) Money

Make Money With Dropshipping

You’ve achieved blogging success through great content and an engaged readership.

You’re making some money.

Things are going well. But what next?

How can you take your blogging prowess one step further and make it (even more) profitable?

Dropshipping is the perfect addition to your blogging business and brand.

It’s easy, affordable, and has a low barrier to entry.

Use it to source and sell awesome products.

Add in Facebook to the drop shipping mix — a popular social shopping channel with great audience targeting and a proven ecommerce revenue model — and you’ve got a match made in blogging and retail heaven.

But how can bloggers use the two to start making real money from their blog? Read on to find out.

We also wanted to take the opportunity to let you know that we use Affiliate links on some of our blog posts. This means that we could make a commission if you click on an affiliate link and purchase something. Please check out our full disclaimer and policy page here.

What is dropshipping?

Drop shipping is a method of order fulfillment through which products are sourced and packaged by a third-party supplier.

The store takes orders for the product and then passes them onto the third-party supplier.

The supplier then coordinates order fulfillment, packing and sending the product out to the customer.

The store owner never sees or handles the product unless they order it themselves.

Much of a drop shipping business’s time is spent marketing the store, creating an email, social, and other ad campaigns to promote the business.

And as orders are fulfilled by a third-party, you don’t need to worry about over-ordering stock. Products are shipped on an ad hoc basis, safeguarding against the wasted stock.

As a result, it’s an attractive prospect for entrepreneurs wishing to start a business with ease.

Of course, dropshipping is not as easy as it sounds.

Its accessibility makes it highly competitive, and there’s a strong focus on building a brand to make your store stand out.

But as a blogger, you’ve already got a strong brand behind you. And your solid following online gives you a readymade customer base to sell to.

If you are ready to make money with dropshipping keep reading!

An example of a drop shipping store

For an example of a successful dropshipping business, let’s look at Bali Babe Swim.

Built using an Oberlo-integrated Shopify store builder, the business sells beautiful swimwear — and the founder, Ryan, has been vocal about his success with Facebook advertising (just switching to video ads allowed him to make $10,000 from his first campaign).

His store has a strong brand and its products are highly niche (more on that later), and it sees regular income every month as a result.

His focused approach and swimwear specialism helps his dropshipping business build up more brand equity.

See how he’s mixed up his product imagery with real customers and models that people can relate to — many dropshipping stores and businesses rely too heavily on generic product imagery that does nothing to actually ‘sell’ the product.

Find the products you want to sell

You’re a successful blogger with a strong following, so you’ve got your niche down to a T. You know what your audience love, and you create great content that caters to their interests.

Your blog is an authority in your niche, trusted and respected by your readers.

Consequently, when it comes to choosing your dropshipping products, you’ll have a good idea of what will be popular with your prospective customers.

Combine niche knowledge with in-depth consumer research and you’ll have a good sense of what will be profitable.

There are a number of drop shipping sites available, such as AliExpress and DHGate. Shop around to find the best deals (and the best products), and only use trusted dropshipping sites to avoid scams. Check the site’s rating on Trustpilot before committing.

Once you’ve identified your products, compare them to the best-selling products from other retailers in your niche. This focuses your search by confirming which products actually sell, reliably guiding your product selection.

Looking at the example of Bali Babe, it’s easy to see the niche that these drop shipped products occupy, catering to people who aspire to a beach boho lifestyle and aesthetic.

Create a community to promote your brand

As a blogger with regularwebsite traffic and a sizeable audience, you’ve got a strong community behind you.

Your readers return to your blog time and again for some more of the awesome strong content you create — so why not replicate this community on Facebook?

You might already have a dedicated Facebook groupfor your blog, a place where you can share updates and your audience can connect and discuss industry topics. But if you haven’t yet got your own Facebook group, now is the time to build one.

Facebook is the perfect medium to bring your readers together. As well as strengthening your existing community, it lets you market your new dropshipping enterprise directly to your audience through Facebook ads.

As well as using your Facebook community for promoting your new business, it provides you with a rich source of consumer insights. Use it to learn what your readers care about, using their pain points to inform your marketing strategy. Use a tool like Likealyzer to really get under the skin of your Facebook page.

Facebook also helps with your drop shipping product idealization. Inviting your readers to contribute ideas and opinions on your business shapes it, helping you choose the products that you know will be profitable.

Connect with micro-influencers in your niche to build your community. This aligns your business with popular figures in your niche, expanding your customer base and strengthening your brand.

Use the generic photos that drop shipping sites provide and take unique, high-quality photos of your products. This will require you to buy/test out and photograph all your products at this stage, but it makes all the difference.

Remember, you’re not just marketing to your existing customer base. You’re reaching a whole new market, so it’s important that you tailor your ads accordingly. Don’t assume that people are familiar with your brand, and give people a reason to click and find out more (enticing wording, offers, etc).

Go back to your blog’s unique selling proposition. This is what sets you apart from the crowd, and it’s what will drive new customers to you from your Facebook ads.

And because you already have existing data analytics from your blog, you can quickly and effectively target your ads to reach a whole new audience beyond your current readership using custom audiences.

Integrate dropshipping into your blog

Once you’ve selected the products you wish to dropship, it’s time to select a sales channel that integrates with your blog.

If you’re a seasoned WordPress blogger, you’ll likely look to third-party plugins for a solution. Many dropshipping sites offer dedicated extensions. AliExpress for examples has its own WordPress plugin, AliDropship. For a one-time fee, bloggers can source products from AliExpress and sell them directly on their WordPress blog. It’s easy to install too so even those who find coding impregnable can enjoy its benefits.

But the problem with these types of plugins is scalability. The reason you’re probably reading this article is that you want to grow your blogging business into something bigger. Using an ecommerce store plugin such as Shopify or WooCommerce gives you the scope to expand your flourishing business beyond dropshipping. Of course, building a store from scratch can be time-consuming, and part of dropshipping’s allure lies in its ease of access. Instead of building an online store from scratch, a quick shortcut is buying a business with a pre-made store and marketing infrastructure — a viable choice for anyone struggling to get their dropshipping business off the ground.

Think about how you can save on marketing costs by integrating your email, social media, and content campaigns across your blog and dropshipping store. Seasonal giveaways, product reviews, and vlogs are just some of the ways to integrate your blogging prowess with pushing products. It might seem like an uphill battle right now, but cast back to the first days of your blog and how much work it was to build up a following. Look around for other successful dropshipping blogpreneurs who have made the leap between blog and business for content ideas.

It gives you the option to go beyond dropshipping further down the line, expanding your business as your success (and business confidence) grows.

Beyond dropshipping: what next?

Solely relying on dropshipping as a revenue stream, while easy and profitable, isn’t always viable in the long-term.

As a small enterprise, you will find yourself in price wars with your competitors, all vying to offer the lowest price on the market.

And as your side hustle grows, you might find yourself yearning for a bigger piece of the pie.

Consequently, you should start thinking about diversifying your offering further. What can you offer your followers that no-one else can?

Take a look at your blog: why do people return to your blog time and again? Is there a way you can monetize your niche by creating a new product or service?

More tips to make money with dropshipping:

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***We would like to note that this post and most posts on our blog may contain affiliate links. This means that if you purchase something that has an affiliate link, we will get a commission from it. Not all items recommended on our site are affiliate links. We only recommend items that we have used and tried. These items have brought us much success and we highly recommend them to you in order to be successful. Thank you for your trust!

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